Yoon Suk-yeol has been sworn in as South Korea’s new president. He has promised North Korea an “audacious” plan to strengthen democracy and freedom in the South.
Yoon, a former prosecutor, won the election in March by the narrowest of margins. He promised to “sternly deal” with the threat posed by Kim Jong Un’s regime while leaving the door open to dialogue.
Moon Jae-predecessor in’s tried to work with the North by holding a summit with Kim in 2018. He also helped set up two meetings between Kim and Donald Trump, who was the president of the United States at the time, before their relationship broke down in 2019. Since then, talks about denuclearization have stopped moving forward.
Yoon, who is 61 years old, tried to make peace with Pyongyang. Since January, Pyongyang has done a record 15 weapons tests, including two in the past week.
“Even though North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs are a threat to our security and the security of Northeast Asia, the door to dialogue will remain open so that we can solve this threat peacefully,” the new president told about 40,000 people on the lawn outside the national assembly.
“If North Korea starts a process to get rid of its nuclear weapons, we’re ready to work with the rest of the world to come up with a bold plan that will make North Korea’s economy much stronger and improve the quality of life for its people.”
Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Doug Emhoff, who is married to US Vice President Kamala Harris, are all sitting among the guests.
Yoon also talked about making South Korea’s government and economy stronger. In his speech, he used the word “freedom” 35 times.
He said, “It is our generation’s job to build a country that believes in liberal democracy and has a strong market economy, a country that lives up to its responsibilities as a trusted member of the international community, and a country that belongs to the people.”
A recent Gallup poll shows that Yoon has some of the lowest approval ratings of any democratically elected South Korean president, at about 41%.
The plan to move the president’s office out of the Blue House, which has been there for decades, has made people unhappy. Many South Koreans think the expensive move is not necessary.
